You know, the core of websites. Practically invented by Al Gore and necessary for any web programmer. Just request strict validation and I’ll gladly produce the right stuff.

The meat of Rich Internet Applications. PHP and MySQL are actually two different things altogether, but they almost always go together. See php.net and mysql.com.

jQuery is a fantastic library for Javascript allowing programmers to quickly and correctly write Javascript that does amazing things including: Ajax, Animations, and more. See jQuery’s website for more information.

Ajax = Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. I doubt that clears things up. Basically, Ajax is javascript getting data from other pages without having to reload the current page. It’s a great way to pull data to the page saving the user download time– and it looks cool. jQuery does a great job of it!

The world’s most popular Blogging-and-Content-Management-System-in-One software package. Incredibly easy to deploy, light on the server, and increasingly customizable, WordPress is free and wonderful in many aspects. See WordPress.org.

Cufón is a beautiful and light way to use your own fonts on a website. Since there are only a few available that are on everyone’s computer, Cufón provides the great way to do it and it’s unbelievably cross-browser supported. See Cufón’s website.

eCommerce Goliaths. eCommerce packages allow the user to sell goods from their site, but I bet you knew that. Magento looks the best, but is one of the most difficult to customize. CRE Loaded is a fancied-up version of osCommerce. In my opinion, a new open-source and easily themed eCommerce package is greatly needed.